


A Missed Opportunity

by Robin Hood (kjack89)



Series: Double Jeopardy (Professor Barba) [2]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Professors, Developing Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-13 15:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13573056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/Robin%20Hood
Summary: Barba’s scowl deepened when he went back into his blazing hot office, where the temperature seemed to have ticked up a few degrees higher still. He sighed and reached up to yank his tie off, tossing it unceremoniously onto his desk. He took off his cardigan and untucked his shirt, but he still felt hot and sweaty, and neither were looks that he wanted to show to the attractive young detective when he stopped by.Not that he cared what the detective thought of him.Or at least, under ordinary circumstances, he wouldn’t have cared, but he’d spent the vast majority of the day thinking about dimples and blue eyes and surprisingly soft-looking lips that he would very much like to kiss. And Barba was old enough and experienced enough from his time as an ADA to know that chasing after hot, young and quite possibly closeted detectives was a fool’s errand for anything other than a single night of fun.It’d been far too long since Barba had been lucky enough to have a night of fun. And he’d be damned if he was going to pass up this opportunity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The gifs of Raúl from The Path are really just the gift that keep on giving...
> 
> First and foremost, thanks as always to AHF for letting me work through how this thing and the other parts of this series are going to be structured.
> 
> I was trying to avoid writing another multichapter at the moment but this got long so I made the executive decision to split it. Such is the way of the world. The second chapter should be coming sometime next week, and will be from Sonny's POV.
> 
> Though obviously I've drawn on the case from Pornster's Requiem for names and inspiration, this is only loosely based on that case and I've changed a lot of details because I felt like it and also because I can.
> 
> Other than that, usual disclaimer. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

Barba spent the final half hour of his last class watching the clock even more than his students normally did. He didn’t bother with his usual lecture about how important paying attention was, that the information from this course would lay the foundation for their classes to come, mainly because he wasn’t paying enough attention to his own class to acknowledge that they were fading fast at the end of the day.

He was anything but fading, something like excitement building low in his gut with each tick of the clock.

Not for the case, tucked so neatly in a file folder and still sitting where Barba had tossed it during Det. Carisi’s visit to his classroom earlier in the day. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to plumbing the depths of human filth once more.

But he was looking forward to seeing those blue eyes and those dimples make a reappearance in his office that evening.

“Prof. Barba?”

Barba blinked at the student standing in front of him. “Ms. Gallegos,” he said, gathering his stray papers together. “Question about the assignment?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’ve done the assigned reading and I wanted to ask about the precedent established by _New Jersey v. T.L.O._ and reasonable suspicion—”

“A valid concern, especially given the way technology has changed and whether the standards of reasonable suspicion used by schools can be applied to things like social media accounts,” Barba said, nodding. “And ordinarily, I’d be more than happy to go over it with you this evening, but I have a meeting.”

A meeting with a gorgeous, long-legged detective, not that his student needed to know that.

She flashed him a smile. “Hot date?” she asked teasingly.

“Something like that,” Barba said with a laugh. He’d been teaching for ten years and long since given up on dissuading his students from having any interest in his non-existent personal life, save to discourage those whose interest took a more personal turn. “I’ve got office hours tomorrow at 10 if you’d like to come by and discuss it more.”

“Sounds good,” she said, still smiling. “Have fun tonight!”

Barba rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “See you tomorrow,” he called after her, shoving his papers in his bag and slinging it over his shoulder before picking up the case file and flipping it open with one hand and beginning to read.

The rather extensive file was everything he expected and nothing he hadn’t seen before, though his heart clenched painfully at each new name on the list of victims. Each person was someone he should’ve been able to protect, had he done his job ten years ago.

Daniel Pryor, it seemed, had certainly not become any less of human scum in the past decade.

He lingered on one name, Evie Barnes, and his heart fell even further. It had been Evie’s case that had finally come across his desk, a violent rape where Daniel Pryor had claimed that she had wanted rough sex. Bad enough it was a he-said, she-said, made worse by the discovery that Evie Barnes had done pornography in which she had appeared in scenes with the kind of rough sex Daniel Pryor had claimed she wanted.

And it was so much worse because he had done the same thing no fewer than seven times before that.

Eight women, brutally raped by a monster, and only one had been brave enough to come forward.

One, whose past was held against her not by the jury, not by those charged with making the decision, but by the judge, by a man who had benefited his entire life from his masculinity.

Barba had walked away from the job that day, knowing that if this was considered justice, then he wanted no part in it.

Now, looking at the fifteen subsequent names that appeared on the list, he wondered which miscarriage of justice was worse.

The brooding thought carried him all the way back to his office, and he set his briefcase and the file down on his desk before loosening his tie and frowning. He was sweating, and not just from the brisk walk across campus.

His frown deepened, and he headed out into the hallway, poking his head into the office of his next door neighbor, an adjunct professor on loan from Project Innocence for a special 3L seminar on appeals. “Is there some kind of problem with the heat?” he asked without preamble.

Bayard Ellis glanced up at him. “Yes,” he said. “They were in here earlier, trying to fix it, but I think they only made it worse."

“Great,” Barba sighed.

“Now that you’re out of the courtroom, I should’ve known that you’re no longer used to sweating it out,” Ellis said with a small smile, and Barba rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

“Trust me, when I used to go up against you, I didn’t sweat all that much.”

Ellis laughed. “That’s because you used to be good,” he said. “One of the best, in fact.”

Though Barba couldn’t help but preen ever so slightly at that, he then paused and scowled. “Hang on, _used_ to?”

Ellis just shook his head and laughed again as he looked back down at the papers he was grading.

Barba’s scowl deepened when he went back into his blazing hot office, where the temperature seemed to have ticked up a few degrees higher still. He sighed and reached up to yank his tie off, tossing it unceremoniously onto his desk. He took off his cardigan and untucked his shirt, but he still felt hot and sweaty, and neither were looks that he wanted to show to the attractive young detective when he stopped by.

Not that he cared what the detective thought of him.

Or at least, under ordinary circumstances, he wouldn’t have cared, but he’d spent the vast majority of the day thinking about dimples and blue eyes and surprisingly soft-looking lips that he would very much like to kiss. And Barba was old enough and experienced enough from his time as an ADA to know that chasing after hot, young and quite possibly closeted detectives was a fool’s errand for anything other than a single night of fun.

It’d been far too long since Barba had been lucky enough to have a night of fun. And he’d be damned if he was going to pass up this opportunity.

So he hesitated for only a moment more before unbuttoning his button-down and peeling it off, tossing it over the back of his chair before smoothing the front of his dark cotton undershirt, hoping it wasn’t stretched too tight across his chest or his ever-softening stomach.

But what he apparently hadn’t counted on was how tightly it stretched across his biceps, at least if Det. Carisi’s eyes immediately snapping to his arms when he let himself into Barba’s office without knocking and staring far longer than necessary meant anything.

“Det. Carisi,” Barba said, slightly amused and more than a little self-satisfied as Carisi’s tongue wetted his lower lip. “Detective?”

Carisi blinked and finally looked at him, a slight hint of pink rising in his cheeks. “I, uh,” he started, scratching the back of his neck as he headed further into the office, “sorry. Uh, is it hot in here?”

Barba’s lips twitched. “Ordinarily, I’d accuse that of being a line, but the heating appears to be working overtime, so, yes, it is hot in here.”

Carisi nodded reached up to loosen his tie, then hesitated. “Do you mind if I, uh…?”

“No, please, make yourself comfortable,” Barba said, gesturing toward one of the seats across from his desk.

But while Carisi shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it over one of those seats, he didn’t actually sit, instead crossing over to perch on the edge of Barba’s desk, a solid two feet too close to be anything even resembling professional, and carefully started rolling up his sleeves.

Barba’s smile widened, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest, noting how Carisi’s eyes tracked the movement. “So,” he prompted, and Carisi blinked and looked away again.

“So,” he said. “Did you read it twice?”

It took a moment for Barba to realize what he was asking, and he rolled his eyes. “I didn’t have to,” he said, reaching out for the case file and flipping it open. “Not a whole lot of new material here — or at least, not a whole lot that didn’t remind me of the old case, which as I’m sure won’t surprise you, I still remember pretty clearly.”

Carisi nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m not surprised by that.” He gave Barba a sad sort of smile. “It’s hard when they stick with you. Some days I, uh, I can’t really blame you for walking away.”

“Walking away wasn’t much easier,” Barba said, his smile slipping, and he stared off into space for a long moment before shaking his head and forcing a smile back onto his face. “Anyway. I did in fact get a chance to look over the case.”

Carisi perked up slightly. “And?” he asked.

Barba shrugged. “You’ve got about as solid a case as you could hope for, given everything. Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever two-bit ADA is working the case doesn’t offer some low-ball deal just to get the case over with.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Carisi’s mouth. “As opposed to you, who would off a higher deal?”

“I wouldn’t offer a deal at all.” Carisi grinned and Barba drank in the sight of those dimples for a long moment before adding, somewhat reluctantly, “Of course, that statement would be a lot stronger if I didn’t have the track record I did.”

“If memory serves, you left the DA’s office with something like a 73 percent conviction rate,” Carisi pointed out.

Barba cocked his head, a small smirk crossing his face. “You did your research. Yes, my conviction rate outperformed the average conviction rate.” His smirk abruptly disappeared as he caught sight of the casefile open on his desk, of the long list of names of people he’d failed. “But that doesn’t account for the fact that only 1 percent of felony arrests are brought to trial.”

“I know,” Carisi said softly.

Barba sighed and shrugged before nodding at the casefile. “In any case, like I said, you have a fairly solid case, and if your ADA can get a good deal out of it, that’s great, and if not, I have confidence in the case going to trial as is.”

“While I appreciate your confidence, I asked for your help, Counselor.”

“I know that,” Barba said. “But there’s no judge in this county that would allow anything from the previous case or cases as evidence, which means that my expertise is unlikely to be particularly helpful. I can sit down with your ADA and walk them through what I would do in court, but I somehow doubt they’d appreciate the gesture.”

Carisi frowned. “If it were me, I’d take all the help I could get.”

“Yes, well, you’re not a lawyer yet, and you should know that most lawyers don’t appreciate the insinuation that they don’t know how to do their jobs.” Twin spots of color bloomed on Carisi’s cheeks and Barba grinned. “You’ve been trying to give advice to your ADA, haven’t you? I imagine they’ve taken that well.”

Carisi shrugged and looked away. “I may have been called Detective Kiss-Ass more than once, and Detective Know-It-All.”

Barba snorted softly. “Not particularly inventive names.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think the people involved were doing it for style points.” Still, Carisi was smiling and Barba could tell he wasn’t overly bothered by it. “Besides, even if it’s reluctantly, they’re still helping me get some experience with the law.” He made a face. “But obviously not enough for me to be able to tell that none of this would be admissible.” He looked at Barba. “You really think there’s nothing you can do?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Carisi sighed, though he gave Barba a slightly sheepish smile. “Well, in that case, sorry for wasting your time, Counselor.”

Barba cocked his head slightly. “I wouldn’t consider it a waste,” he said, pitching his voice low, and he leaned forward in his seat, moving closer to Carisi, who stared down at him, his dimples just lightly creasing his cheeks.

“No?” Carisi asked lightly.

“No,” Barba agreed, casually standing and taking a step towards him. “Although if we’re not going to be discussing the case, we’re going to have to find some other way to spend the evening.”

Carisi laughed, almost breathlessly, his eyes flickering to Barba’s lips, lips which curved into an almost predatory smirk at the look.

Then Carisi ducked his head and glanced away, and Barba was just admiring the delicious pink that spread across his cheeks and considering closing the space between them when Carisi’s smile fell. “I just...I hate feeling like I failed them, you know?”

Barba blinked, and followed Carisi’s gaze to the open case file, to the list of names of women who had been allegedly assaulted by Daniel Pryor. “Yes,” he said, a little sharply, and took a step back, his own smile disappearing. “I do know.”

“Teresa Alvarez could barely speak in the hospital, she’d been so badly beaten, and I dunno, maybe it’s because she’s got the same name as one of sisters, but I promised her that I’d get this guy, and—”

He broke off, and Barba nodded slowly, his heart falling.

Clearly the evening was not going to go the way he wanted it to.

But he couldn’t quite find it in himself to be disappointed by that. He’d been out of the game for ten years but even he knew how increasingly hard it was to find an NYPD detective who genuinely cared about the victims of the crimes they investigated. And even rarer to find one who cared about justice enough to ask for help, to try to make the case as airtight as possible by any means possible.

Once upon a time, Barba had made his living by reading people, and he knew that Carisi clearly had a big heart.

Just like he knew that if anything were to happen with Carisi, it wouldn’t be a one night thing.

He couldn’t quite find it in himself to be disappointed by that either.

“Pull up a seat,” he said instead, dropping back into his own chair and grabbing the case file. He glanced at his watch. “And we should consider ordering some food, too. There’s a Chinese place just off campus that has some of the best scallion pancakes I’ve ever had.”

Though Carisi obediently sat down across from him, he gave Barba a slightly confused glance. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna be able to help much,” Carisi said mildly.

“And I don’t know if I will,” Barba said. “I don’t know if there even is any precedent out there that would get the previous cases admitted as evidence.” He met Carisi’s gaze squarely. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”

A slow smile crossed Carisi’s face. “Ok then,” he said, grabbing a pad of paper from Barba’s desk and snagging a pen from the coffee mug that doubled as a pencil holder.

Barba scowled at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Helping,” Carisi told him. “Provided, uh, you don’t think it’s me telling you how to do your job.”

“Considering it’s not my job anymore, I’m not entirely sure I’d have a leg to stand on if I did.” He gave Carisi a measured look. “It’s a big project. I’m talking thousands of court cases to pore over, a number of different angles to approach.”

Carisi shrugged. “I don’t mind,” he said, giving Barba a small smile. “I got all the time in the world.”

Barba barked a laugh. “No you don’t. You’re a full-time detective and a full-time law student.”

“Fair point,” Carisi allowed, his smile widening. “But as much free time as I have, I wanna help. Ok?”

Barba looked at him appraisingly. “Ok."

Apparently, this wasn’t going to be a one night thing either.

And Barba definitely wasn’t disappointed by that thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooooooooooo this chapter's only a solid month and a half late. My bad, but hopefully this chapter and the remaining parts of this series will make up for the wait!
> 
> My eternal and undying gratitude for AHumanFemale, who wrote vast swathes of this and without whom this chapter would never have existed. You insisted on only getting an A/N instead of full credit, but you didn't specify what I was allowed to say in said A/N, so here goes: you are amazing and wonderful and the best part of my life. Writing with you is an honor and privilege and I only hope that I can give you just a piece of all that you have given me. You're made me a better writer and a better person and I love you more than any words I can possibly write can do justice to <3

Carisi stared, frowning.

The space between his brows pinched and the cursor on the screen in front of him blinked accusingly. The words _supplemental narrative_ in bold across the top of the box had been staring him down for close to half an hour but he’d only succeeded in writing the same combination of ten words over and over before deleting them. You’d think after being a detective for years, arrest reports would write themselves.

Typically, they did.

Not tonight, though. Tonight they held their ground and Carisi didn’t have it in him to power through.

_Damn it._

“You look distracted, Carisi,” a voice called across the squad room and he looked up to find his boss staring, lips quirked in amusement. “Need a break?”

“Nah,” he called back and focused intently back on his screen, “I’m good.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I am.”

Benson gave a soft laugh and went back into her office. She was probably working on paperwork of her own and still she’d made time to come and check on him because he was too busy daydreaming to do his job.

He could do this, he thought.  

 _Buzz_.

Or not.

His pocket vibrated again and he reached for it, already smiling, already knowing who was texting him. Barba had been texting him a lot recently, mostly to keep him updated as his research into precedent progressed, but the case-related texts had been accompanied by a number of other texts as well, the occasional humorous observation, and it was almost a point of embarrassment to look forward to them the way he did.

He’d only gone to Barba because of his reputation.

His reputation for being damn good, for being smart and determined and more than willing to take up a fight even if it wasn’t a sure thing. Carisi liked that, had respected it long before he’d ever put a face to the name that he’d started to think was their only hope at getting justice for these girls. It was a complete shock to find that the face that went to Rafael Barba’s name was gorgeous.

Deep set green eyes, smooth skin a golden tan. Gray flecked hair, surprisingly muscular arms that begged for touch and an ass that begged—

No.

Nope.

Not going there, not when the “hot for teacher” jokes wrote themselves and for all his faults, Sonny Carisi still had a sense for timing. Combing over the brutal rape cases that forced a man out of his career was, in fact, _not_ the time or the place for a workplace attraction.

Well, it wasn’t _technically_ his workplace…

_Is it possible to die of caffeine withdrawal?_

Carisi chuckled at Barba's text before looking at the time on his Apple watch. It was closing in on ten o’clock at night — a week ago he would have been surprised to hear that Barba was devoting so much of his time to this. Now, however, the dedication to the cause was expected but still greatly admired. And appreciated.

 _I hope not,_ he responded.  _If it is we’re both dead in the water._

It wasn’t lost on him, how good this felt. To have someone to talk to, to have someone share this burden when he spent his nights thinking of nothing else. He’d found a partner in Barba, a confidant, and it was with a flare of warmth in his chest that he felt his phone vibrate again. Almost immediately. Was Barba sitting at his desk, message thread open, just waiting for Carisi to respond? Was he smiling down at his phone, too?  

The thought him happier than it probably should have.

Moreso once he read Barba’s reply.

_We’re going to have to stay among the land of the living for a little while longer. I think I found something._

His heart leapt straight into his throat and he found himself gripping his phone tight enough to crack the screen.  

Could it be? Could they really have pulled this off?

He needed to go see Barba, they could—

“Carisi,” he heard behind him and turned to find Rollins marching in, “you’re not gonna believe this.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked in return, fingers itching to respond to Barba. “What’s going on?”

“Our new victim?” she asked rhetorically and Sonny nodded, “Went and met her at the hospital and you’ll never guess who she described as her rapist.”

Face falling, he swallowed against the pit in his stomach. “You’re kidding.”

She shook her head, blonde ponytail swinging. “I’m really not.”

Just then Fin walked in behind her, an iron grip on the man twisting in his grip.  

“Where you want this sack of crap?” he asked, Daniel Pryor’s arm twisted elegantly behind his back. Carisi knew that if the guy so much as twitched in the wrong direction Fin could probably break his arm. Might even want to, and that was an urge Carisi understood completely.  

“Interrogation one,” Benson answered from her doorway, lips twisted now in something approximating a feral smile. Carisi forgot, sometimes, that Benson had a dark streak in her. “Mr. Pryor, I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you but I am looking forward to seeing you in handcuffs again. For good, this time.”

Pryor grinned. “Well, we all need something to sleep at night, right?”

Fin pulled his arm a little tighter and the kid hissed in pain, a flicker of anger moving over his expression. “Let’s go,” the sergeant announced and kept him moving. “Keep all the chit-chat for the things we wanna hear about.”

The two of them disappeared into an interview room and Benson looked pointedly at the two of them.  

“Carisi, Rollins? You got him?”

“Yeah,” Rollins responded, nodding, “Of course.”

“On it, Lieu,” Carisi told her, standing with a long sigh. He put his phone back in his pocket and squared his shoulders, changing the outlook for his night from sharing information with Barba to dealing with violent psychopath who hurt women like the rest of them had breakfast.

Barba was going to have to wait.

* * *

 

A little more than half an hour later, Carisi was exhausted.

Being in the same room as someone like Pryor was trying enough, much less for extended lengths of time while he hinted and alluded and toyed with them no matter how many different ways they approached the questions. They had ten years of experience each but Pryor had been in interrogation rooms for most of his adult life, and it balanced out more than Carisi cared to admit.

What he needed was a drink.

Or sleep.

Or, he thought as he closed the interrogation room door behind him and nearly knocked Barba over, coffee and his third wind of the day.

“Shit,” he swore and reached out to steady Barba, clasping a hand on one solid tricep as the professor found his footing. “Counselor, I’m sorry. I didn’t even see you there.”

“Detective,” Barba said with an arched eyebrow and a soft sort of smile, and he held up one of the two coffees in his hands. “For you. I’m sorry to show up unannounced, but—”

He froze.

Carisi would have wondered why were it not for the sound of the door opening behind him and a soft chuckle that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. With Pryor at his back, the new darkness in Barba’s expression made perfect sense. The glare leveled in his perp’s direction was the closest thing to fury Carisi had ever seen on Barba — shoulders tight and squared up, feet planted, jaw so tight he could see the muscle twitch — and it was clear that the man was expecting a fight.

“Hey, don’t I know you?” Pryor asked, moving to stand next to Carisi. Just in front of the man who currently looked like he was contemplating murder. Pryor thinks for a moment and Carisi can see the moment it dawns on him because a smirk stretches his lips, the picture of amusement. “Oh, yeah. I do. You’re that lawyer that got me off.”

The little prick smirked.

“I mean, usually I like to leave the ladies with a little something when they get me off, so maybe I guess I owe you—”

Barba got in the guy’s face before Carisi even realized it was happening, blind to the movement until suddenly Barba was there. Eye to eye, fist curled at his side.

“You were guilty then and you’re guilty now,” Barba seethed, voice hardly above a menacing whisper.  “You’re not going to get off this time, literally or—” His lip curled. “—euphemistically.”

“Yeah, except you’ve got no evidence, so good luck with that. I’d say I’d see you in court but from what I hear, you were too big of a bitch to stay in the DA’s office after you lost.” Pryor took his time looking Barba over, head to toe, before a mocking sneer distorted his features. “Of course, what did they expect with a fag like you?”

While the breath was sucked out of Carisi’s lungs, Barba squared up. For a few long seconds it looked like the man was about to take a swing and Carisi started to move forward, to separate them.  

It wasn’t necessary.

Barba only smiled, bringing the coffee he’d been clutching for the last several minutes up to his lips and taking a leisurely sip.  

“The case against you the first time was difficult,” he acknowledged, “but this time around? You’ve made it very easy for us. You’ve gotten cocky and you’ve gotten sloppy, and you’re going to be going away for a long time. I look forward to being there to see it.”

This time Daniel Pryor’s facade cracked and he looked like he might lunge, might want to wrap his hands around Barba’s neck, but then Rollins was taking him by the arm and yanking him away. His eyes didn’t leave Barba again, not for the entirety of the time he was being dragged in the opposite direction until he was out of sight entirely. Carisi looked at Barba, closer now than he had been a second ago — he didn’t remember moving forward but had no doubt he had — and it wasn’t until the perp had been out of sight for several long moments before Barba relaxed and turned back to Carisi.

“You alright?” Carisi asked, keeping his voice low. He wasn’t sure how Barba would react to being comforted in public. “That couldn’t have been, uh, pleasant.”

He winced at the inadequacy of his words, but Barba didn’t seem to mind. “Pleasant, no,” he agreed on a long exhale. “But it did do a great deal to remind me just how much he needs to be put away.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Carisi said before grinning. “I’ve gotta say, though, Professor, you held your own. I admire your, uh—”

He broke off, searching for the right words, and Barba’s lips twitched toward a smirk. “Suicidal streak?” he finished.

Carisi nodded and laughed lightly. “Something like that,” he agreed and did his best to ignore the curl of heat that settled low in Barba’s appraising stare. “Come on, let’s have this coffee before it gets cold. You can tell me about what you found.”

Barba glanced down at the coffee in his hand and shrugged. “I have a better idea,” he said, draining his coffee. “Let’s go back to my office. We can talk there.” Carisi hesitated and Barba rolled his eyes. “And I have scotch.”

“Sold,” Carisi said, draining his lukewarm coffee in a single gulp. “Lead the way.”

* * *

 

As soon as they were back at Barba’s office, Barba made a beeline for his desk, pulling a bottle and two glasses from the bottom drawer of his desk. Carisi lingered in the doorway, a small smile on his face. “I feel like I’m back in undergrad, breaking the rules by drinking on campus,” he admitted.

Barba glanced up at him and laughed, shaking his head as he poured them both a generous two fingers. “Thankfully, we’re both well past the legal drinking age, and besides, professors’ offices have a different set of rules.”

“Is that true?” Carisi asked, his smile widening.

Barba shrugged and handed him a glass. “It may as well be,” he said. “Anyway, it’s well past the time when everyone went home.”

Carisi accepted the glass and took a long sip before glancing at Barba. “Thank you, by the way,” he said, trying to sound as off-handed as possible. “I know the long nights aren’t hugely fun for anyone—”

“I don’t know,” Barba said casually, flipping open one of the many law books scattered on top of his desk. “Part of me missed this, actually. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching, but poring over books, trying to find that one crucial piece of precedent we can use…” He glanced up at Carisi with a small half-smile. “It’s almost invigorating.”

“Almost?” Carisi teased, and Barba just rolled his eyes.

“Don’t push your luck, Detective,” he said, before leaning over the book and pointing at a paragraph. “But this is what I think we can use — or, well, your ADA can use — to get the prior evidence admitted. See, based on the New York Court of Appeals’ 2014 reversal of precedent on _People v Crimmins_ …”

He carried on, running Carisi through the intricacies of case law, but Carisi had stopped listening. He wanted to pay attention, really he did, and not just because Barba had been good enough to find this case law for him. Barba was also clearly one of the smartest men Carisi had ever had the opportunity to work with, and he’d be an idiot not to listen to someone who was more of an expert than most of the ADAs Carisi dealt with on a daily basis.

But Carisi was also a weak man, and as much as he hated to admit it, it had done something to him earlier to watch Barba get in Pryor’s face. Besides he was standing close enough to Barba to smell his cologne, something subtle and citrusy that made Carisi want to brush his lips against Barba’s neck and—

He forced himself to look away, taking a quick sip of scotch to hide his distraction, but then he caught sight of Barba’s arm muscles shifting under the thin cotton of his t-shirt as he flipped the page and pointed at a different paragraph, and his mouth went dry. Barba glanced up at him, and Carisi’s heart beat painfully in his chest as he realized just how close they were standing. The dim light of Barba’s desk lamp set off the gold in those green eyes and the gray in his hair, and when Barba’s lips curved into a small smirk, Carisi was tempted, to tempted, to close the space between them and finally kiss him the way he’d wanted to for over a week now.

But then Barba asked, almost eagerly, “Does that make sense?” and Carisi realized he hadn’t listened to a word Barba had said.

“Oh, uh, sure,” he said, looking down at the law book and trying desperately to pretend like he had any idea what Barba was talking about. “ _People v Crimmins_. Uh, yeah.” He managed a weak laugh. “You’re the expert after all. I trust you.”

Barba’s grin widened and he took a step back and closed the law book with a decisive snap. “Well, I’ll get you the details to pass on to your ADA tomorrow,” he said, picking up the book and turning to his bookshelf. “You know, I think we’ve got a real shot here.”

Carisi half-smiled. “Yeah, Counselor,” he said, definitely not watching Barba’s shirt ride up as he put the book back up on his shelf. “Yeah, I think we do.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Missed Opportunity [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14311026) by [monstrous_eliza (ships_to_sail)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/monstrous_eliza)




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